


Lunch Break

by spikewriter



Series: A Symphony of Ten [18]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-02-28 06:43:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2722586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spikewriter/pseuds/spikewriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Conversations in the local lunch spot</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lunch Break

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Day Eighteen of my 2009 Advent Calendar. This is part of the “Rose Tyler, Defender of the Universe, and Her Faithful Companion, the Doctor (Oi!)” Series. Inspiration from an actual conversation I overheard while at lunch one day.

The guy sitting two tables away from them in the restaurant loudly announced, "If they think they're going to go out there and find something roughly resembling humanoid life, they're sadly mistaken."

At the first snigger, Rose looked up from her salad at her lunch companions. "Don't even think about it."

The two men continued to snigger anyway, getting a bit louder as they caught one another's eye. "I'm serious," she warned. "Jake, Doctor..."

For once, Jake was the one with the truly mischievous gleam. "I was just thinking of how they'd react if they knew they had a very humanoid alien sitting right here.”

“They wouldn’t believe you,” Rose said, hoping that would put an end to it.

“They’d believe you were trying to pull some scam on them,” the Doctor cheerfully added, which didn’t help at all. “Think you were one of those people who send email messages purporting to be some high-ranking official in Belgium who needs help laundering money – though I haven’t figured out why it’s Belgium in this universe and not Nigeria. Not that any of the people behind those things are actually from where they claim to be from and certainly not a high-ranking official of any kind. Did I ever tell you about my trip to Belgium when I met Charlemagne?”

Whatever experiment the Doctor had in his new lab at Vitex must be going well because he seemed positively giddy this afternoon. She knew what Jake’s problem was; he was bored. Work had been blessedly quiet for the last few weeks, nothing outside the usual milk runs of UFO sightings reported by folks who'd had a little too much to drink and "my neighbor is an alien" offered as an explanation for something that was considered "weird." Rose wondered what their neighbors would think if they realized the man they knew as her partner was from Gallifrey by way of metacrisis instead of Kent with relatives north of Hadrian's Wall. Not that Mrs. Donovan two floors down needed a reason to find the Doctor weird. Just watching the variety of mechanical bits and bobs he carted into their oh-so-posh building had been enough to do that.

"Little green blobs of whatever? We could take 'em. Not that they exist."

Clearly their fellow diner hadn't exhausted himself on the topic of aliens -- but she could see the little bit of the devil creeping into the Doctor's expression. "Five quid says you won't go over there and prove to them aliens do exist," Jake said, clearly seeing it as well.

Rose hoped they were joking. She really, really, _really_ hoped they were joking; she didn't want to have to take an official stance on this. But then the Doctor said the fatal words: "You're on."

"You are not going anywhere, Doctor," Rose said, hoping that wasn't a headache forming at her temples. "We are supposed to be flying under the radar."

"You heard Jake; he bet me five pounds."

"Jake, stop encouraging him or I'll stick you with filing for the next month."

"You're no fun when you're being the boss."

"Live with it. As for you --"

She turned back to find the Doctor grinning at her as if this was all a grand joke. "You weren't going to do it, were you?" she asked.

"Nah. I just wanted to see what arguments you could come up with to convince me not to."

If she wanted to be boring and official, she could recite chapter and verse on regulations as to why maintaining a sense of discretion was considered important to Torchwood's work even if the organization no longer maintained hyper secrecy. That would only encourage him to tease her more. Instead, she leaned forward slightly, offering up a sweet smile. "You know how much you hate the reporters who go chasing after you because we're together? Imagine what they'd be like if they knew you were an alien as well."

His face crinkled up as if he'd smelled something bad. "That is truly evil. You did realize I was joking about accepting, didn't you, Jake?"

As Jake pointed out that a bet was a bet, Rose turned her attention back to her salad. Now was not the time to mention the fact she'd seen the face of their loud, opinionated man in a Torchwood incident folder not a week ago and maybe they should find out a bit more about him. She'd steal a few more of the Doctor's chips first.


End file.
